The Price of Farmland in France

The price of agricultural land in France ranges on average from €2K/hectare up to €17K/hectare, and price movements last year were just as varied.

Each year in France between 300,000 to 400,000 hectares of farmland changes hands. As large as that may seem it is still less than 2% of the total agricultural surface, excluding vineyards.

The market is worth between €3 billion and €4 billion a year, but it is small in terms of transaction value, with around two-thirds of the each sale worth less than €10K.

Most of the sales are to tenant farmers already installed on the land, whose interests are keenly protected by SAFER, and both of whom benefit from a right of pre-emption.

Nevertheless, around 20% of the sales of non-tenanted land are to non-agricultural buyers. Last year there were 8,050 such buyers, who purchased 26,900 hectares of land, to a total value of €215 million. Most of these buyers are investors who seek a change of planning use on the land or who simply rent the land for continued agricultural use.

Year on year the movement in prices of farmland is relatively modest; over the past 20 years it has increased by a non-spectacular 54% after adjusting for the effects of inflation.

Since 2013 the rhythm of price increases has slowed - 0.4% last year, 1.5% in 2015, 2.9% in 2014 and 6.3% in 2013.

However, as usual, there are significant variations between and within regions and departments.

Thus, highest rises over the past 10 years have been in Nord-Pas-de-Calais, where prices have increased by 65% in real terms. In Alsace, Ile-de-France, Normandy and Centre-Val de Loire prices have risen by over 30% since 2006. By contrast, in Burgundy, Limousin, Auvergne and Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur prices have fallen in real terms.

At a regional level, the most expensive region for farmland in France is around the Parisian Basin, and in the departments of Bouches-du-Rhône and Nord-Pas-de-Calais. Lowest average prices are in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region and Pay de la Loire, regions where there is a high concentration of land for grazing of livestock.

The table below shows the average prices in each department for 2016 The figures are for untenanted land and exclude vineyards.

Prices within departments are by no means uniform, so the information should only be used as a general guide.